Day 4

The day started with a special lecture at CMU given by a political science lecturer. She also kindly gave our group an interview, in which she gave us many insightful comments about changes in living infrastructure due to tourists. She also spoke from her experience as a teacher living in CMU about the inconveniences brought by Chinese tourists visiting CMU. It is interesting to note how CMU has managed to quickly adapt to the influx of tourists, despite it not being a designated tourist spot.

It highlighted to me the mindset of Chiang Mai people who are so used to Chiang Mai being a tourist spot. As such, the people are open and welcoming to tourists. They see tourists in their living space as something common. On the other hand, if tourists were to flood Singapore’s HDB flats or our mini-marts, I would expect that Singaporeans would not be pleased. The contrast between the separation of tourist and residential areas in Singapore, and the non-separation of that in Chiang Mai is worth nothing. It also showed how such different environments can nurture such different mindsets, seeing from the rise in online xenophobic comments from Singaporeans.

We were supposed to have a focus group discussion after the lecture. However, due to some miscommunication, this was cancelled. Our group was definitely disappointed as this programme was already cancelled twice. However, we decided that it was no use brooding over this, and that we should move on instead. We quickly arranged for our discussion to be shifted to another timeslot.

After lunch, we had a leadership workshop cum amazing race. Honestly, it wasn’t quite what I was expecting. The explicit leadership segment in the workshop did surprise me a little as the professor immediately threw us the question of what a proper introduction should be like. However, it did prove interesting and was a good break from research work. The activity also allowed me to analyse the leadership qualities of my team mates. Although I have always noticed such things when we work together, today was the chance for me to truly scrutinise and reflect upon it. Different people had different strengths and what was important was how one utilises it to contribute to the team. On the other hand, there were also many unexpected finds during the amazing race such as a whole stretch of cafes along the back of our hotel!

For dinner, we ate at a café which was decorated very prettily. It was good time for our group to relax and have a chat. Afterwards, we walked around and a few of us had Thai massage. The Thai massage in Chiang Mai was extremely cheap (S$10 for 1 hour) and good. The massager was very kind; he also knew how to speak Chinese! Apparently, he thought I was from China. How ironic given that I came here to find Chinese tourists! Anyway, the massage was a pleasant end to the day.